Plans For Manhattan Bridge Area Detailed This Month; See Clinton, Rutgers, South Street Revamp Proposal

There are several noteworthy items on the agenda of Community Board 3’s transportation committee this month. Residents will make a proposal for safety improvements at Rivington and Columbia streets. The Department of Transportation will explain plans for a new bike lane on Delancey Street, east of Clinton Street. Also, city officials will outline a proposal to redesign the area around the Manhattan Bridge.

Last month, members of the committee weighed in on changes to the road configuration along Clinton, Rutgers and South streets. You can see the Transportation Department’s presentation below. In a nutshell, it creates a two-way bike lane on the west side of Clinton Street, establishes angled parking along Clinton in certain places and narrows the automobile lanes as a “traffic calming” measure. Some blocks would lose parking spaces, while others would pick up some spots (for a net loss of 2 spaces).

The plan also calls for changing Rutgers Street to a one-way southbound roadway. On South Street, the city wants to add a 6 inch concrete median on the east side of the block to better protect bicyclists in the 2-way bike path. At South Street and Montgomery Street, plans call for narrowing the roadway and creating a larger pedestrian area.

At last week’s community board meeting, parts of the proposal were approved. A resolution forwarded to the Department of Transportation stated that more community engagement is needed, since “tenant associations and resident groups did not have adequate notice of the project.” They asked for more information about the Rutgers Street part of the plan.

The resolution noted that the city rejected requests from CB3 for a traffic signal at Clinton and Henry streets and a mid-block crosswalk on Clinton Street between East Broadway and Grand Street. The board wants to see the data used to determine that these safety improvements weren’t warranted.

CB3’s transportation committee meets Tuesday, May 12, at 6:30 p.m., at University Settlement, 273 Bowery. Here’s the full agenda.

Terrible idea… Adding these “buffer zones” take away from having a safe loading & unloading for passengers if they park on the westside. Especially hazardous for small kids, since they have no “sidewalk” to get off on.

Sorry can’t resist this: So the minority of people in the neighborhood who drive cars already have two lanes of this block of Clinton devoted to free car storage along with the two lanes devoted to moving cars. Now you want to insist that the bike lane be next to the car lane so that you can illegally block the bike lane while dropping people off on the curb? I guess you just put your finger on the reason that bike lanes next to traffic lanes don’t work very well.